Gravity

Black holes. The most terrifying, mysterious, and fascinating objects in the Universe. Eternally hungry, they eat everything in their path and are constantly expanding. But how small and how big can a black hole be? Let’s find out. It’s not very easy for a black hole to be born. Most often they’re just a result of a massive star ending its life cycle. If you take a star and squeeze it very, very hard, at some point it cannot withstand the pressure anymore. So it collapses and turns into a black hole.

It all started with a minor change on our planet. At first, people noticed the Moon had become brighter and a little bigger. But nobody paid attention to this. The Moon affected tides all over the world. The water flooded the beaches, but it wasn’t a tragedy. A lot of fish came close to the shores. People found giant squid, anglerfish, and other creatures next to the coast, although they usually live in the dark depths. New, stranger things happen every day. Birds no longer fly to the south in winter. They gather in huge groups flying around cities with no purpose. The Moon used to help them navigate in nature, so they can’t figure out which way to fly anymore.

Now, as much as we love epic space battles with blasters cutting through the black void and causing cheerful booms, that’s not exactly what happens when something explodes in the big black. Space is basically a vacuum, meaning it has no oxygen. And oxygen is an essential part of any process of burning we have here on Earth. You might argue that stars can burn and explode into supernovae, but that’s not exactly true either.

So you fall right into the heart of the black hole and prepare for a sad end. Well, you don’t have to! Falling into a black hole won’t necessarily destroy you or your spaceship. You have to choose a bigger black hole to survive.

Ahh, what a nice cosmic family. Meet Mars — I bet you’ve met him before. These two little guys are Phobos and Deimos, Mars’ small moons. But it seems like Mars isn’t treating the little ones the right way. Phobos and Deimos are believed to be captured asteroids.

Astronomers have recently found a strange object far away from Earth. It disappears every two minutes and sends out waves of radio noise three times in one hour. It was first seen by a student named Tyrone O’Doherty while he was looking at the sky in his home country, Australia.This space object appears to be different from anything else we’ve seen before in space. Because of their “calculated” movements, scientists call these types of objects “transients.” Turns out, they are not that rare to find. When scientists study transients, most of the time, they look near a big star or near the things it leaves behind after it goes out.

Hey, space buffs! Just how well do you know our Solar System? Guess the planet: it’s more than twice as massive as all the other planets combined. It’s covered with striking swirls and stripes — which are actually windy clouds of cold ammonia and water, floating in an atmosphere of hydrogen and helium. Still no clue? Then look at this! It’s the infamous Great Red Spot — a giant storm larger than our home planet that has been raging for hundreds of years. Right you are! This cloudy world is Jupiter! And the main question is, “Is this planet our enemy or friend?” NASA’s Juno orbiter is exploring this gas giant at the moment, sending us tons of useful data. Jupiter is so big that 11 Earths could fit across its equator. If our planet was the size of a grape, Jupiter would be a basketball! The gas giant is the fifth planet from the Sun, orbiting around 484 million miles away.

Have you ever wondered what stars look like in galaxies far, far away? Researchers can generally only see the brightest stars, so with the data they managed to collect, they simply thought these stars were similar in size and weight to the ones we have in our own galaxy. It’s hard to explore the space around us though. When they study stars in other galaxies, it’s like they’re trying to see a tiny ant crawling on a leaf. Not easy, but some new fancy models allowed them to find more information about distant galaxies. They used a big telescope to study light from 140,000 different galaxies, some of which are billions of light-years away from us. They realized stars in distant galaxies are mostly larger than those in our Milky Way. They’re heavier too.

The cylinder on the end of a cable is sitting there, useless as it might seem. In fact, this is a ferrite bead that assists with many electrical wires to reduce electromagnetic interference. Electrical wires act like unintentional antennas, broadcasting the EMI.

Have you ever wondered what it would be like if every planet in our solar system was the size of Earth? Well, it’s time to dive into this mind-boggling scenario! Let’s imagine what each planet would look like if they were as big as our beloved blue planet. Would the barren, red landscape of Mars suddenly become a lush green oasis? Would the massive, swirling gas giant Jupiter just disappear? And how would it affect our solar system as a whole — are we all doomed? Buckle up and let’s find out.

Okay so you’ve seen the movies and read the books on time travel. Most of them tell stories about entering some futuristic boxes — and in the blink of an eye, you’re in some different epoch. For now, this is just sci-fi. But there are ways to make time travel possible — at least theoretically. We just don’t have the technology figured out yet.For starters, time travel to the future could be achieved by traveling at high speeds. But not just “getting a ticket on the super highway” kind of speed. This is based on Einstein’s theory of special relativity. It explains that time slows down for objects that move at really high speeds. And the good news is scientists have already tested this theory, and it looks promising. They did it with the help of two identical clocks. One was placed on a jet, and one stayed on the ground.

Empty space is not really empty; at least, that’s what quantum field theory says. It’s actually filled with tiny vibrations that can turn into virtual particles if they have enough energy. These virtual particles can produce packets of light with low energy called photons.Now, there’s something every black hole has — an event horizon. It’s a point of no return. That means once something crosses that point, it can never get away — not even light. And there’s an insanely strong gravitational force around the event horizon.

The only life that we are certain about so far in the entire universe is on planet Earth. (Whether that life is intelligent is... let’s say, arguable.) But anyway, it’s not surprising that we’re tirelessly searching for life on other planets. So far, they’ve discovered more than 4,000 of them! But what’s even cooler NASA has compiled a new list of 24 planets that aren’t just “Earth-like” ... They’re BETTER. The conditions on them are so good that they’re more comfortable than on our planet! So let’s examine some of them. KOI 5715.01. Hmm, let’s be coy (KOI), shall we? This wonderful planet is in the constellation Cygnus. And why is it so wonderful? Well, our Sun is a yellow dwarf. And sorry, Sun — even though you’re not bad at supporting life, there are some stars that can do it better. Nothing personal.

So, Mars has two moons — Phobos and Deimos. And, apart from the bizarre shape, there’s nothing remarkable about them... Except for one thing. Not so long ago, scientists discovered a strange phenomenon on the surface of Phobos. And they still can’t find any explanation for it. What is this phenomenon? And what does it tell us about the history of our Solar System? Let’s find out. American astronomer Asaph Hall discovered Phobos and Deimos back in 1877. Do you know that all the planets in our Solar System are named after Greek and Roman deities? For example, Mars, or Ares, is the famous deity of war. That’s why the satellites of this red planet were named after the sons of Ares — Phobos and Deimos.

It’s dark outside — almost 2 AM. You go outside and look at the sky. And here it is — bright, full Moon. You might think you know a lot about Earth’s natural satellite, but let me ask you this, “How did it form?” The answer is “nobody knows”! But, of course, there are theories. The most popular one, called “the giant-impact theory,” claims that the Moon formed during a collision between Earth and another planet. This planet must have been smaller than ours, the size of Mars. And the collision itself probably happened around 4.5 billion years ago.

Some of the best hobbies out there make tedious activities more exciting: like extreme ironing! There isn’t much to explain about the rules, it’s just ironing clothes, but in the most outrageous of areas, like on top of mountains or on sky slopes. It’s also a pretty organized sport, it has its own international association and its own world championship. The first one took place back in 2002. The original extreme ironist is Phil Shaw, who came up with this hobby when faced with an impossible choice: either do his chores and iron his clothes or go rock climbing. Needless to say, he went for both at the same time. Phil decided to call himself “Steam” and went on an international tour to promote extreme ironing.

We’re so used to the things our body does to keep us alive each day that we barely ever think about the mechanisms of sleeping, talking, breathing, or even blinking. But what would happen to your body if you stopped doing each of these things all of a sudden? How long would it be before it became a problem? Not that I’ve ever considered taking some sort of vow of silence, but I do sometimes wonder what would happen if I just stopped talking altogether. Would I lose my voice forever at one point?

It’s staring at you, and you’re staring at it. A giant eye that seems to be pulling you into an abyss. You’re hovering over it in your space copter. But however scared you might be, you still need to do your job. So, you send your copter down to the surface of the Red Planet. Right, that’s where you are — on Mars. But first things first: you take a moment to remember everything you know about the fourth planet from the Sun. It’s the last of the inner planets — those are the planets that lie within the asteroid belt. They’re also called terrestrial since they’re made up of rocks and metals. The atmosphere of Mars is much thinner than Earth’s. It contains 95% carbon dioxide and a mere 1% of oxygen. In other words, don’t even think about pulling off your helmet!

Did you know that there’s an astronomical object in which space and time actually swap places? How does it work? And what exactly does “swapping space and time” mean? Well, let’s figure it out. Imagine that you’re on a spacecraft. The vehicle can only move straight. Your path leads to some inevitable point, and you have no idea what lies ahead. You can only hope that it won’t be too bad. Meanwhile, everything around you is complete madness. A chaotic collage of many historical events. What do you see? Ancient humans and dinosaurs? The birth of the universe? A... future? Who knows. That’s what the universe would look like if we swapped time and space. And, theoretically, this is what you’d see if you fell into a black hole and somehow were able to survive. But how is something like this even possible?

On average, Earth’s waters rise by 14 hundredths of an inch each year, and sometimes I feel like, you know, getting some floaties. So we can’t help but wonder what if we end up living underwater? We now have evidence that humans could adapt to that. The Bajau — a group of people living in South-East Asia — have evolved to have enlarged spleens. The spleen is the organ that stores oxygen-rich red blood cells. When these cells are released into the bloodstream, they enable divers to hold their breath underwater for longer periods of time. This allows the Bajau people to free dive to depths of up to 230 feet!

Did you know that you can actually inflate a balloon without using your lungs? All you need is a plastic bottle, vinegar, baking soda, a funnel, a rubber, and a balloon, of course. First, pull some baking soda into the balloon using your funnel. And now pour the vinegar into the bottle. You don’t need a lot — just fill about a third of the bottle. Let’s go ahead and put the balloon over the bottle. But don’t tip the soda inside the vinegar yet. Secure the balloon with a rubber band and tip it over to make the soda fall into the vinegar. And now you can step back and enjoy the show. When the baking soda and the vinegar are mixed together they release CO2 that will inflate the balloon.

Some of the best hobbies out there make tedious activities more exciting: like extreme ironing! There isn’t much to explain about the rules, it’s just ironing clothes, but in the most outrageous of areas, like on top of mountains or on sky slopes. It’s also a pretty organized sport, it has its own international association and its own world championship. The first one took place back in 2002. The original extreme ironist is Phil Shaw, who came up with this hobby when faced with an impossible choice: either do his chores and iron his clothes or go rock climbing. Needless to say, he went for both at the same time. Phil decided to call himself “Steam” and went on an international tour to promote extreme ironing.

Perhaps, we’ve all stopped to think at one point about what it would be like to live on a different planet. I know I’ve had days like that. Gotta get away. And maybe even interact with other types of creatures that already live somewhere else in space. These days, such ideas sound more like something from a science fiction book. But in the future, permanently changing your address to another planet might turn out to be mandatory. Think of the star in our Solar System as a battery.

Okay, here you are, in the middle of the ocean. It’s endless, but you can’t see it. Because there’s a thick fog all around you. Dense clouds hide the huge but dim sun. Is it day or night?.. You don’t know. There’s only a gray haze around you. You’re alone. Even if you try to swim down, after several hours, you still won’t be able to see the bottom of the ocean... And that’s a typical water planet for you! I know, sounded kinda dark... But it’s not that bad! These water worlds are more interesting than they may seem, so let’s take a look at them.